Edward Brooke Charter School in WSJ

There's a piece in today's Wall Street Journal about charter schools, the high demand for them, and the political challenges in expanding them. Two Boston charter schools are mentioned: Edward W. Brooke and Uphams Corner. Edward Brooke principals Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman are quoted discussing the heartbreak of parents, including Mr. Clark, whose children are not picked in the lottery.

What's An Extra $10K?

Random thought: in NYC, some of the charter management organizations tout that they pay their teachers on average $10K more than teachers in DOE schools.
What is the motivation behind the pay boost? Some possible options:

1) Desperation to attract any decent teachers.
2) Direct competition with DOE.
3) Competition for teachers within the charter school landscape.
4) Attempt to gain publicity.

Any thoughts from people in the know?

From my experience and understanding, Boston charter schools generally pay less than BPS and don't pick up as much of the benefits package. Based on published and anecdotal data, Boston charter schools get plenty of applicants without offering the pay boost of some NYC charters.

Boston Charters vs. Brookline

As Aaron Pallas writes, Joel Klein has claimed that Boston charter schools are better than the Brookline schools. Pallas argues that they are not because in Brookline, a much higher percentage of kids are scoring advanced. I guess the question is how do you compare schools?

A couple of points:

1) First off, Kane did not include all of these schools in his matched study, only the ones that are oversubscribed. Second, there is a huge discrepency between the high perfoming schools and the low performing schools, as Pallas acknowledges. I think it's better to flesh out the picture, as I've done below. My guess is that Klein was using data from the study without reflecting on the fact that all charter schools in Boston were not included.





2) Pallas argues that what makes a high quality school is the percentage of kids who score advanced. As we can see in the chart above, only one charter school (Excel) in Boston matched Brookline's 44% in math last year. In ELA, a number of schools equalled or surpassed Brookline's 24%. As a teacher, I can see the validity in that point. I always want all of my students achieving at the highest level. But what about the argument that the goal of a good school is to get all of their students to be proficient or better? In that case, Brookline is matched by a number of charter schools. This is how the Boston Globe compares schools each year. I think both methods are important.

3) Note that 44% advanced on 8th grade math is 10th highest in the state. The highest percentage was 55% (Wayland). Brookline's ranking on ELA was not quite as high.

I think charter schools need to worry about performance at a number of levels:

1) Are we scoring higher than Boston? - lowest bar
2) Are we scoring higher than Massachusetts?
3) Are we one of the top schools statewide in A +P?
4) Are we pushing as many kids into Advanced as possible without slipping in #3?

Update: Thanks to Aaron Pallas for catching an error with Roxbury Prep's data on the ELA chart. The new chart should be correct.

Unions vs. Charters

A typical union line is that charter schools are evil because they take advantage of their teachers by paying them less and making them work longer hours.

Here's a question:

If charter schools are evil, why is it that there are so many young, motivated, well-educated teachers are clamoring to teach in these schools?

Are my colleagues, educated at the finest colleges and universities in the country, really a bunch of nitwits who can't think straight?

WSJ Op-Ed on Unions vs. Charters

Interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the battle between charter schools and unions mentions the Kane study on Boston pilot vs. charter schools.

The duality of union strategy is interesting. On one hand, they're trying to get charter schools to unionize while trying to undermine their funding on the other. Will teachers really try to join a union that is trying to shut down their schools? Will the unions continue to try to undermine charters if their members teacher in charter schools? It seems like a game of chicken to me.

Reville Op-Ed

Today, Paul Reville had an op-ed in the Globe promoting Governor Patrick's education plan.

Here's the part on charters:

"We seek to build on the success of high-performing charter schools to reach a larger number of students, especially those with special needs and those who are English Language Learners. Currently, charter schools serve only 2.6 percent of the state's total public school population, and typically educate fewer special education and non-English-speaking students than their sending school districts.

However, the governor has proposed lifting the cap on charters in Massachusetts, specifically in low-performing districts that are nearing their caps, so proven charter operators can serve our most challenged student populations who have not been well served. The governor's "smart cap" proposal lifts the district spending cap from 9 percent to 12 percent in those low-performing districts when providers commit to work with the neediest students. This cap lift will ensure that successful charter school operators have the ability to expand their contributions in school districts where the need for innovation is greatest."

How do they plan to do this without corruptingthe open lottery process that is currently used by all charter schools in the state? The details are still missing on this point.

He continues:

"Further, to encourage innovation and expand access to a greater number of students, Patrick has boldly called for the creation of Readiness Schools, autonomous, in-district, charter-like schools designed to give experienced educators increased discretion to operate schools under performance contracts with school committees. Readiness Schools will attract universities to operate partnership schools and empower educators, charter providers, and others to take responsibility for not only running schools but improving student achievement. One form of Readiness School will be offered in situations where outside providers will be invited in to operate chronically under-performing schools under new rules."

1) These Readiness Schools sound a lot like pilot schools, which we just saw in the Harvard study to be not nearly as successful as charters. Why rely on this model that doesn't seem to work so well?

2) What exactly does this quote mean: "empower educators, charter providers, and others to take responsibility for not only running schools but improving student achievement." As it applies to charter providers, does it imply that they only run schools but don't currently work on improving student achievement. That's not true in the schools that I am familiar with. They are singlemindedly about improving student achievement. If that's already true for charters, why try to set up another class of schools that needs to be convinced of this goal. Since charter schools already believe it, so support their expansion first.

Of course, we all know the reason that Readiness Schools are being pushed. It's the same reason why pilot schools were pushed in the first place. It give districts that are bound by union rules a chance to try to compete with charters. We all know it's easier to start fresh with new schools than to try to turnaround a disastrous existing school.

Sing a Little Tune

Today's Globe has a nice piece on a visiting composer program at Neighborhood House Charter School.